Unidentified Flying Organisms
by Ragtime Mouse
Summary: Just an odd thing I wrote up one night.


"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." –Douglas Adams

---

"Do you have any idea what today is?"

Arthur blearily blinked back the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes. As wake-up calls go, he could think of quite a few more pleasant ones--the warmth of the sun gently probing one's eyelids, or the soft laugh of a lady one had the privilege of spending the night before with.

If he couldn't be awakened by something pleasant, he would have settled for something normal.

"Huhwha?"

"Hey, I asked you a question." Arthur sat up in his bed, now greeted with the rather exasperated face of one Ford Prefect. There were few familiar things left in Arthur's life after the destruction of his home world (even the mattress he had been sleeping on was not made by a team of exhausted factory workers, as he'd come to expect, but had in fact been haunted and slaughtered on the planet Squornshellous Zeta) but the expression on Ford's face was something he was quite used to. "Do you know what today is?" he repeated.

And if he couldn't have normal, at least he'd have familiar.

The expression, his sleep-fogged brain logically deduced, that he was upset about something. Usually this had to do with there being an absence of alcohol in the nearby premises, but there was a nuance of urgency Arthur detected there that suggested otherwise.

As odd as it might seem, he'd become an expert on reading the other's expressions. He'd known Ford for quite some time, and Ford was the last long-time friend he had to turn to. He might as well be an expert on him, as strange and oddly disturbing as that notion was.

"No."

"Today is… well, I don't know either. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking you." He waved a hand in Arthur's general direction. "But the point is, well, I thought it might have to do something with all of those things outside."

"What?"

Ford grinned a far too wide and entirely unsettling grin. "Come and see."

He did.

-.-

Moments later, he was standing on the bridge of _Heart_ _of Gold_ with his dressing gown wrapped tightly around himself. It was uncommonly chilly, but he was more concerned on what the viewscreen was showing.

Trillian was with them; Zaphod was not. The female was smiling softly, with a look of childlike happiness on her face Arthur hadn't seen before. Usually she had a concentrated, almost mathematical sharpness to her eyes, and a grim firmness to the set of her mouth. It was strange to see this change, but far from unpleasant. She was fully dressed, having not changed into sleeping-clothes, so she hadn't been to bed yet.

Arthur couldn't tell how late it was.

"I." Ford gestured grandly to the screen. He was wearing a set of bright orange pajamas, pilfered from some anonymous source that was best left so. They were decorated with little blue fishes who were grinning in a way that defied all conventional laws of conventional ichthyologic anatomy. "Have absolutely no idea what they are."

What they _were_ was beautiful.

Drifting across the open vastness of space were creatures. It seemed impossible that something could survive out in that nothingness, but nevertheless there they were. Arthur could draw a faint comparison to them and the stingrays of earth, as they were vaguely triangular in shape, with two wing-like flaps on either side of their bodies. These flaps undulated they moved, and around them clouds of bright blue and purple nebulous matter drifted like singularly beautiful slug trails.

"Sulfur," Trillian said simply, "They're creating mini-atmospheres by discharging sulfur from their bodies. Like Io."

Arthur hadn't the vaguest notion of what she was talking about, but he nodded. "Oh."

"Then they're filtering out what they can live off of and using the rest to sustain the sulfur they excrete." She shook her head, "Amazing."

Ford nodded."Yes, well, that's true, but what _are_ they, exactly?"

She considered this for a long moment, and then shrugged, her smooth brow furrowing. "Hell if I know," she finally conceded.

Arthur and Ford both couldn't help but grin at that. "D'you think they'd… oh, I don't know, send us spiraling down to a screaming fiery death? Anything unpleasant like that?" the latter finally piped up with alarming calmness.

"No. They're small. Not much can hurt the _Heart of Gold_," Trillian patted the meaningless spiral staircase that stood in the middle of the bridge in an almost affectionate manner. Subsequently, Eddie took that moment to wordlessly cue a bit of soothing, mystical music to suit the occasion and enhance the mood.

He effectively broke it.

"Well," Trillian sighed, her sense of wonder soured by the softly crooning voice emanating from the ship's speakers. She couldn't decipher all of the words, but she caught such phrases as "full of wonders" and "when you believe", so she figured now would be as good a time as any to vacate the immediate area. "I'm going to bed. Maybe they'll be gone by morning. Until then, we've stopped."

Arthur wasn't entirely sure whether anything could remain perfectly motionless in space. Even planets moved--even _suns._ He wouldn't question Tricia McMillian, though. She knew more about that sort of thing than he likely ever would. "Night, Trillian."

"Night, you two."

Ford mumbled some sort of nocturnal farewell. He seemed unusually affected by the creatures on the screen. His expression was one undecipherable, even to Arthur. Tricia snapped an irritable "Shut up," to Eddie before she vanished, for which both of the men were grateful.

The two men stood in comfortable silence, watching the ray-creatures drift by the ship. There seemed to be a never-ending line of them, stretching as far as their viewscreen could reach; a multi-individual mass of light and gently undulating fins.

Finally, Arthur spoke. "Beautiful, hmm?"

"Sort of," Ford almost instantaneously replied. It was as he'd been waiting for Arthur to speak. He paused, as if realizing his _faux pas_, and then continued on when he realized his delay had only made things worse. "Well, it's not just that… these things are anything special. I've just been waiting to see stuff like this for fifteen years."

Arthur considered this.

"It's like this. Space--all of _that._" He gestured melodramatically. "Is _my_ home. Just like Earth was _your_ home. And being stuck in the one place where you can't get back to it…" he didn't finish his sentence. Obviously, it was awkward for him to be speaking so openly like this. It was amazing he'd even given the subject as much thought as he did. Ford wasn't the kind of person to say these sort of things. "It's just that... look, I'm sorry Earth got blown up." He finally looked Arthur in the face as he spoke. "I mean, there was nothing I could do about it, so I figured I'd take you and book it. I didn't want you to think I didn't care or anything. About Earth. So I took you away. Like I said. Earlier."

Arthur didn't see what he was driving at. "Um… well, yes, and I'm grateful for that." He paused. "Yes. Yes I am."

Ford studied him skeptically. "Really? You wouldn't have rather I left you there?"

Arthur's brow furrowed, and he felt himself grow unpleasantly bewildered. "Yes. I mean… well, sometimes I thought otherwise. In the beginning of it all."

Ford nodded, tight-lipped.

"But I'm not brave enough to prefer death over… well, this." He mimicked Ford, making a dramatic sweep of his arm to the creatures before them. "Call me a coward, but I can tell you I prefer these things to flaming honorable death anytime."

"Honor is stupidity." Ford snorted. "You Earthmen had some weird ideas of what's noble. Nothing wrong with wanting to live."

Arthur had to agree. "Mm. That's a little comforting, at least." Another pause ensued, after which the human ventured forth tentatively, "So… is that what all that was about?"

"All what?" Ford looked genuinely surprised.

"All of that… sentimental stuff."

"Oh. That. Well, let me assure you right now, that absolutely none of that." Ford's gaze was level. "Ever happened."

"Oh."

"Yes." Ford nodded sagely, and crossed his arms, looking as dignified as possible for someone who was half-asleep and garbed in bright orange pajamas with obscenely cheerful fish printed all over them. "Anyway- where were we?"

"I have no idea," Arthur truthfully admitted.

"Let's go into the… the food place." Ford waved his hand vaguely. "And have some tea."

Arthur cocked his head, "The ship can't make tea, Ford. The drink machine won't listen."

"Hey, it did it once, it can do it again." The alien cast his gaze to the screen as they retreated. "We won't be going anywhere for a while, anyway."

It didn't take the computer very long to conjure up another kettle of extraordinary tea--at least not as long as it had the first time. Arthur had enjoyed the tea before, when there was little on his mind except finding a restaurant somewhere at the end of the universe, and that whole nasty being blown into oblivion thing.

It was even better when you had someone to sit with and pointedly not talk to.


End file.
